"Nero's very presence has altered the flow of history, beginning with the attack on the USS Kelvin, culminating in the events of today, thereby creating an entire new chain of incidents that cannot be anticipated by either party.""An alternate reality?""Precisely. Whatever our lives might have been, if the time continuum was disrupted, our destinies have changed."

CBS, which does not produce the rebooted film series but nevertheless owns and controls all IP rights to the franchise[1], has officially declared the name of this reality to be the "Kelvin Timeline".[2]

Contents

In the prime universe, a supernova in 2387 threatened the entire galaxy. Ambassador Spock was able to halt the supernova, via the use of red matter to create an artificial singularity, or black hole, which absorbed the exploding star, but was too late to save the planetRomulus from destruction. The Narada, a Romulan mining ship under the command of Captain Nero, was pulled into the black hole, followed by Spock's ship, the Jellyfish.

Nero placed blame on the Federation for the loss of his homeworld and sought revenge. He emerged from the black hole in 2233. The USS Kelvin was the first ship that Nero encountered and attacked; Captain Richard Robau promoted his first officer, Lieutenant Commander George Kirk, to captaincy before ordering the evacuation of the ship and agreeing to come aboard the Narada. There, Captain Robau was interrogated regarding the whereabouts of Spock, with whom Robau was unfamiliar and, moments after he informed Nero of the current stardate, he was murdered.

Nero then proceeded to attack the Kelvin. Kirk used the Kelvin's weapons to prevent Nero from destroying the evacuating shuttles departing the ship, ultimately sacrificing himself by ramming the Kelvin into the Narada. Kirk's actions saved some eight hundred lives, including his wife, Winona, and their newborn son, James, but failed to destroy the Narada.

Kirk gazing at the Enterprise in Iowa in 2255

As a major consequence of these events, James Kirk grew up without his father and without the ambitions his father gave him in the prime reality. However, he was persuaded by Christopher Pike to join Starfleet, three years later than he had done in the prime reality.

In the meantime, other events happened differently. Pavel Chekov was born in 2241, while the Romulans were confirmed as relatives of the Vulcans. Plans for the Constitution-class were pushed back by a decade and the USS Enterprise began construction in 2255 at the Riverside Shipyard in Iowa, with a number of internal, external and systems design differences to the prime reality version. It was launched three years later, already as the Federation flagship under the command of Captain Pike. Spock was already promoted to commander by this point. Starfleet continued using the simple <Earth calendar year>.<day of the year> format for stardates, and had already begun using gold, blue, and red colors for their uniforms. They also adopted the Kelvinassignment patch as the sole Starfleet insignia. The Vulcan High Command was reinstated as the Vulcan High Council.

According to the Blu-ray featurette Starships, the Kelvin-type ships were 1,500 feet long, while the Enterprise was approximately 2,380 feet long. This implies that, in the prime reality, Starfleet tried to streamline the size of their ships while, in the alternate one, they did not.

Along with the Enterprise, various technological, scientific and aesthetic aspects of a multitude of cultures, including those of Earth, varied greatly in difference and advancement in comparison with that of the prime reality.

In 2258, Nero captured the Jellyfish as it emerged from travel through the black hole. He marooned Spock on Delta Vega, and despite the efforts of the USS Enterprise, he used a portion of the remaining red matter aboard to destroy the planet Vulcan and six billion of its inhabitants, including Amanda Grayson. While marooned on Delta Vega, Spock encountered the alternate James T. Kirk and made him aware of the prime reality and the altered past. He also met Montgomery Scott and gave him the formula for transwarp beaming, which Scott subsequently used to transport Kirk and the young Spock to the Narada, allowing them to prevent a similar fate for Earth by detonating the Jellyfish and its red matter to destroy the Narada.

Afterward, Christopher Pike was promoted to admiral and Kirk and Spock became captain and first officer of the Enterprise, which was officially launched on a voyage of exploration, with much of its commanding crew comprised of those who served aboard it in the prime reality during 2267: Kirk, Spock, Scott, Chekov, Leonard McCoy, Hikaru Sulu, and Nyota Uhura. Spock maintained a relationship with Uhura and reconciled with his father, Sarek, following the deaths of his Human mother and most of his own people. Ambassador Spock intended to found a New Vulcan colony for the ten thousand Vulcan survivors to live and thrive there. (Star Trek)

By the late 2250s, the head of Starfleet, AdmiralAlexander Marcus, had increasingly become concerned about tensions with the Klingons, who since they were first encountered had conquered and occupied at least two planets and had fired on Federation ships half a dozen times. Fearing that the Klingons were coming his way, Marcus went in search for potential resources. He found the SS Botany Bay, recovering its seventy-three occupants. He awoke Khan Noonien Singh from cryogenic stasis, and blackmailed him into designing ships and weapons to prepare for the coming war.

When the Enterprise arrived at Qo'nos, Kirk opted to apprehend Khan, rather than firing a torpedo on his location. When they found him, Khan killed a Klingon patrol that had intercepted Kirk's away team and submitted to his authority. Aboard the Enterprise, Khan explained his involvement with Marcus, after McCoy and Carol Marcus discovered his crew were contained inside the missiles supplied by the admiral.

The Enterprise faces off against the Vengeance

Marcus soon arrived on the USS Vengeance, and opted to destroy the Enterprise to cover up the conspiracy. Fortunately, Scott had stowed away on the Vengeance and deactivated its weaponry, giving Kirk and Khan time to space-dive and commandeer the ship. Khan then betrayed Kirk, killing Admiral Marcus, and threatened to resume bombarding the Enterprise unless his people were beamed aboard. The missiles were beamed aboard, but Khan reneged on the deal, forcing Spock to detonate the missiles; however, McCoy had removed the cryo chambers from the missiles before they could be used against the Vengeance.

The Vengeance crashes into San Francisco

Both ships were crippled and began descending due to Earth's gravitational pull. Kirk reactivated the Enterprise's warp core before it crashed, but at the cost of fatally poisoning him. When the Vengeance crashed in San Francisco, Spock beamed down to execute Khan in retribution, but McCoy realized Khan's blood could be used to revive Kirk, so Uhura beamed over to stun Khan repeatedly so that Spock could simply knock him out. McCoy then performed a blood transfusion, saving Kirk's life. Khan was placed back in stasis with the rest of his people.

Almost a year later, Captain Kirk presided over a memorial for the lives lost because of Khan and Marcus. The refitted Enterprise was rechristened and sent on the first, unprecedented five-year mission, with the aim of promoting a less militaristic direction for Starfleet. (Star Trek Into Darkness)

Upon the arrival of the Enterprise at Altamid, Krall attacked with his Swarm drones. He destroyed the Enterprise, captured most of the crew, and eventually coerced EnsignSyl into relinquishing the second Abronath piece. His weapon complete, Krall departed Altamid with his Swarm to wipe out all life from the nearby StarbaseYorktown, whose multicultural population he saw as the epitome of the Federation's degeneracy.

The Franklin faces off against the Swarm

Krall's Swarm overwhelmed Yorktown's defenses and was on the verge of breaking inside when he was engaged by the USS Franklin, commanded by Captain Kirk. The Franklin used a VHFradio broadcast to disrupt the Swarm's internal communications network and destroyed most of them. Krall managed to enter Yorktown, but the Franklin physically stopped his ship short of his destination.

The Enterprise-A going to warp

Having drained many Enterprise crew members before and after the battle, Krall had regained much of his Human physiology and was thus able to disguise himself as a Starfleet officer. This allowed him to make his way unimpeded to the central atmospheric processor on Yorktown, where the Abronath's effects would be disseminated throughout the station. He was intercepted by Kirk, and the two fought while Scott redirected the processor to vent into space; Kirk then ejected both Krall and the Abronath out of Yorktown. Shortly after, Krall was consumed by the Abronath, leaving only the Starfleet insignia from his stolen uniform. Following the defeat of Krall, a new Enterprise, which had been under construction at Starbase Yorktown, was completed and assigned to the surviving Enterprisesenior staff to continue their five-year mission. (Star Trek Beyond)

This intent is also evident in the script of Star Trek. [5] While not completely audible in the film, before being teased by his classmates, young Spock is asked by the computer in the learning center on Vulcan, "What is the central assumption of Quantum Cosmology?" to which Spock replies, "Everything that can happen does happen in equal and parallel universes."

As the alternate reality is merely divergent rather than a completely new universe, this means backstory elements pertaining to anything before 2233 hold true for both timelines. Director J.J. Abrams said, "It's actually nice when you're given a box.... when you're given parameters that you have to honor because it gives you limits and then you know that within those boundaries you can be creatively risky." (Memory Alpha:Ask J.J. Abrams/Answers)

On the Star Trekaudio commentary, the writers stated some events in the new timeline were meant to give insight as to what happened in the prime reality, such as how Kirk and Spock met following the Kobayashi Maru scandal. Roberto Orci opined that identical events would happen in both timelines because the "rules of quantum mechanics tell us that the universes that exist, they exist because they are the most probable universe [....] The things that happened in the original series didn't just happen because they happened, they happened because it's actually what's most probably going to happen." However, when asked if this meant Spock and Uhura might break up as they were not in a relationship in the prime reality, Orci responded:

"Their relationship is slightly predestined. On the other hand, our whole point was to give all of our characters free will again. They truly have free will. The universe is not written. The future is not written. And it's not clear what's going to happen. It's going to [be] up to what the characters do. Be it us as the next writers or someone else who has a better idea, may these characters fulfill their destinies according to their own devices and their own free will." [6]

Roberto Orci, in a post on Ain't It Cool News [7] as well as in an interview with Star Trek Magazine issue 146 (p. 40), and J.J. Abrams, in an interview with MTV conducted between the two aforementioned statements from Orci, [8] established a reason why technology in the alternate reality appears to be more advanced than it is during the same period in the prime reality. Scans and telemetry of the 24th centuryNarada, taken by the Kelvin, were brought back to Starfleet by the survivors on the Kelvin's shuttles. Therefore, Starfleet's development and construction plans were slightly altered, making everything potentially more advanced, slightly ahead of schedule.

Star Trek Beyond co-writer Simon Pegg had a different view of how the alternate reality diverges from the prime timeline from Orci and Kurtzman, believing events before 2233 were different too:

"The less than simple fact [is] that time is not linear. Sure, we experience time as a contiguous series of cascading events but perception and reality aren’t always the same thing. Spock's incursion from the Prime Universe created a multidimensional reality shift. The rift in space/time created an entirely new reality in all directions, top to bottom, from the Big Bang to the end of everything. As such this reality was, is and always will be subtly different from the Prime Universe." [9]

Comics artist Tony Shasteen approved of the alternate reality, commenting, "I can appreciate what is being done with this alternate universe. I feel like it works with what has come before. I know it isn’t everyone's cup of tea, but I appreciate it for what it is." [10]

StarTrek.com originally differentiated the new versions of the characters introduced in Star Trek with the initials "AR", and some pages used "09" as a disambiguation in the web address. Within their online database, the timeline is interchangeably described as the Nero-created "alternate reality", [11] "alternate dimension", [12] "alternate timeline", [13] and "alternate universe". [14]. After 2016, some entries in the database were updated to switch to the disambiguation "Kelvin", but retained the interchangeable "alternate" text in the entries themselves. [15]

In an interview, actress Alice Eve called it the "split universe". [16]Simon Pegg joked, "I had this idea. I think that we might all be the mirror universe crew." Perhaps in the third movie, we'll see that "something's going to go to shit, we're all going to turn bad, Spock's going to grow a beard, and we're going to meet ourselves. That could happen." [17]

The Star Trek screenplay contains a musing from Spock Prime, having been told by Kirk that Chekov, Sulu, and Uhura were all serving in the Enterprise (by this point he takes it for granted that McCoy is as well), while Scott is on the same planet as the two of them, that Kirk's implausible meetings with the people who would become his crew in the prime reality may be the result of the timeline trying to "repair itself" from Nero's damage. The film's novelization by Alan Dean Foster preserves this exchange.